


Sidewalk Chalk

by thehotinpsychotic



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-15 10:54:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2226435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehotinpsychotic/pseuds/thehotinpsychotic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, I have Dissassociative moments. You know that you are there physically, but you don’t really feel like it. It’s moments like these where you second guess your own name and wonder if that bad kiss in eighth grade was real or if you’d imagined it.</p><p>It’s 4:00 a.m. on a Thursday morning.</p><p>Right now, I’m having one of those existential crises with the duration of a sneeze.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sometimes, I have Dissassociative moments. You know that you are there physically, but you don’t really feel like it. It’s moments like these where you second guess your own name and wonder if that bad kiss in eighth grade was real or if you’d imagined it.

It’s 4:00 a.m. on a Thursday morning.

Right now, I’m having one of those existential crises with the duration of a sneeze.

My name is Hayden Reily.

I find it helpful to just repeat facts to yourself until the words don’t sound like words and the vowels turn to mush. Every now and then, I even look up the facts, just to prove to myself that I am indeed awake.

It’s the 19th of August and today is my first day of school.

Oh shit; is it really? I glance over at the clock to confirm that it’s past midnight. Time is tricky; the night had been dragged out right under my nose, and I hadn’t suspected a thing.

I sit up in bed, turning on a lamp. I rub my sore eyes that burn with each blink. Why? Two reasons, one being that I’d been crying some, and the second being that I’m so damn tired.

  
So why can’t I sleep?

The clock ticks on by, and for a split second, I imagine it’s hands really being tongues; broad, clicking tongues wagging, mocking me.

I sink my head into my hands, admitting,   
“I need sleep more than I thought.”

Still, I can’t just get myself to relax. I try to count sheep, but

I always lose count somewhere around the forties.

I tend to be a drifter when it comes to thinking. That’s what about every teacher I’ve ever had has said, and it took me about five teachers telling me this to realize that I am in fact a space case.

I don’t mean to be. It’s just that I’m always mentally busy. It’s not easy, either; sometimes I jump from thought to thought so quickly that I have to go back, retrace my steps and figure out how I got to whatever current idea’s floating around.

I rest my head against the bedpost and lie awake until my alarm buzzes at 7:00.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

My stomach’s fluttering when I walk into that school. Still, I don’t think I’m as nervous as I was freshman year, but when I notice my shaking hands, that assumption is deemed debatable.

Maybe I’d be comforted if I had some friends to meet up with somewhere.   
I wonder what my friends would be like, if they’d fit the high school group archetypes.   
For it to be a balanced group of misfits, we’d need a nerd, a freak, a burnout, a queer kid just to provide supposedly correct LGTBQA representation, and then whatever the hell category I fit into.

I wonder how other people look at me quite often. Whether I’m a freak, or a nerd, or that one kid that you can’t ever make heads or tails of. There’s kids that I think about some nights, contemplating what they’re doing at the moment and trying to analyze their average behavior. I can’t help but question whether I’m on anybody’s mind outside of school.

The worst thing you can be in high school is forgettable. This may sound like a written stunt for adolescent angst or whatever, but if you think about it, it’s absolutely true. You’d rather be the kid that threatened a teacher freshman year than that one girl whose name no one can recall. You’d opt to be the school joke than be old whathisname. You’d prefer to be that one kid every few grades who dies than be invisible, and that’s when you know something’s not right.

I have high hopes for an easy day, but the first day of school, the supposedly seamless introduction, goes worse than any other day could’ve gone. After my fifth period of listening to class rules, I’m about ready to bite my own arms off, mostly out of boredom.

Lunch is my 27 minute break from the mundane repetition, but even then, it’s not an ideal one. I’m not surprised when no one offers me a spot to sit, no matter how much I stand around looking lost. I finally take my seat at a vacant back table, tossing my bag on top.

I’m not hurt or even embarrassed that I spend the entire period at my own table, just mildly disgruntled that not a single kid had thought to sit by me.

I can’t help but worry if the rumors are starting again. Except these rumors may sound just like any other lie that was blown out of proportion by some lightweight who’d had too much to drink, but they’re so much more than that.

Perhaps I’m not even allowed to call them rumors, because the majority of tales being swapped about me at North Ridge High are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

 


	3. Chapter 3

You’re now probably wondering what exactly happened that’s so horrific that people are still blatantly talking about it behind my back. The time will come for that, and now is not that time. I like to believe there’s a time and place for everything, and that every single thing we do was supposed to happen at that exact moment, and someone, not necessarily God, worked very hard to make it happen the way it did.

    Although it’s only the first day of school, I’m dying to get out of that place by eighth period. It’s just too much.

    Upon reaching home I immediately hole up in my room, curling up in bed. I’m exhausted by now, despite the fact that it was a very short day, what with the early out. Still, it doesn’t help; I’m still about ready to pass out at any given moment when I fall onto that mattress.

    I roll over in bed, grabbing my backpack from the floor. I elect to do the one homework assignment that I received. What class would be so challenging or difficult that it’d require a homework assignment on the first day, you ask? Humanities is the answer.

    Don’t get me wrong; I really don’t mind. It’s interesting enough; our first booklet is on art history, which is a topic that I’ve not necessarily found fascinating, but at least mildly interesting to the point where I’m not wanting to scratch my eyes out of their sockets reading it, which has occurred with certain classes.

    I fall asleep unintentionally before ten p.m., and I sleep like a freaking rock.

    I drag myself through the halls, and while I don’t pay the most attention to my fellow students, I do notice that there’s something different today. There’s an eerie stillness in the halls, and bubbly kids are now moping. I wonder what had happened, but honestly, I don’t have any friends to tell me, and I’m much too shy to ask someone.

    I’m sitting in guided study, contemplating whether or not friends are necessary to get through high school when the loudspeaker comes alive with a buzz.

    “Students, it is my sad duty to inform you that two of our pupils have died late last night. Alyssa Schroder and Madalyn Lucas were in a car accident at approximately 11:30 p.m. last night and were both killed. School will be cancelled tomorrow and Friday, as their joint visitation is tomorrow night and their funerals are Friday. Go to the front desk for information on the times, and there will be a candlelight vigil tonight at 8:00 in the school’s east parking lot. Speakers are encouraged.”

    The classroom is so silent at first that a pin could drop and a neighboring teacher would be able to tell us about the noise for about a solid minute. Then, the whispers start, and those whispers turn into mumbling, which turn into constant reiterating, and with a room of around twenty people all trying to put their two cents in at once, it’s quite the dull roar.

    Our teacher allows it, knowing that this is a time for us to be grieving, supposedly.

    I don’t know how much some of these kids are grieving, though. I see Allison Cole giggling about something in the seat to my left, and I wonder what’s so urgently funny that she can laugh minutes after hearing about two classmates’ deaths.

    I didn’t know Alyssa at all, but I was somewhat acquainted with Madalyn. She sat right next to me in third period Chemistry. She complained about that a lot, sure, but I like to think that it wasn’t because I was there, but because her friends weren’t.

    One day she asked to borrow a pencil, and you can bet that I gave it to her before the words were out of her mouth. She had some sort of charming quality about her. She was the girl you’d take home to your parents, and I think that a lot of guys picked up on that.

    By that, I mean she was repeatedly targeted by some of the grosser boys at our school. They were the more popular ones, and they were also charming, but not in a genuine way, but more of a tiger smiling sort of manner, meaning that they were budding sociopaths who could change their reputation like shoes.

    I’ve never been to a high school party, but I overheard on multiple occasions about Madalyn making out with guys or letting them grab her boobs and all I could think about is if those boys feeling her up and sucking on her lip were the same ones who’d grabbed at her in the halls and whistled when she bent over.

    She quickly adorned the role of the school slut. I’m not going to try to prove her a virgin, because that’s not the way you’re supposed to handle being called a whore or any adjacent term. Even if she did sleep with those guys, or with those girls, who cares; isn’t life about making decisions that support your happiness, granted that you’re not harming anyone in the process?

    I like to think that she’d agree with me, that if she knew what ran through my head when I gazed off at her absently wasn’t judgment, but understanding, she might’ve lasted through freshman year.

    But she died sophomore year is what you’re thinking right now. Yes, but in reality, she was gone so far before then. I call the Madalyn that gave me butterflies pre-accusations-and-assumptions-perceived-as-negative Madalyn. The Madalyn after that is too much of a mouth full to repeat, but basically, that’s when she started to get bad.

    Not like how I get bad. She didn’t go off the wall or anything close, but she just sort of… deteriorated. She’d stopped answering questions, and I knew for a fact that chemistry was the only class she actually enjoyed. She wouldn’t smile anymore, she wouldn’t laugh, wouldn’t even make eye contact. That charm quality was long gone.

She’d fall asleep in class on a daily basis, and I think that our teacher felt so bad for her, she let her. She was fading, and everyone could tell.

But here’s the kicker: the fact that everyone around her noticed her steady fall, yet no one tried to help her. It’s not because we deemed it inevitable, but we found it challenging, and no one was committed enough to her to take on that obstacle of getting her back to herself.

She was there that entire year, and for these past few months, too. But at the same time, she wasn’t. She was there physically, of course, but emotionally, no. She was broken; not cracked, but shattered. And now that she’s really gone, I guess she’s finally whole again.

    I don’t think about Madalyn again until dinner that night, when my father has his usual sports page of the paper exchanged for actual news.

    Audrey and I can’t have phones at the table, and Lily can’t have her Gameboy, because if we are focused on anything other than what’s immediately in front of us, we’re digital wave kids that take meals for granted. At the same time, Dad reading the paper at the table is just Dad reading the paper, nothing more, and nothing less.

    “Judy, did you see this?” my father asks.

    All of our eyes shift over to Mom, who is busying herself with accomplishing perfect symmetry as she cuts her biscuit.

    “Judy,” Dad repeats.

    Mom finally looks up, her eyebrows perked with interest. “What is it?”

    “Two girls at Hayden and Audrey’s school were killed,” Dad informs. “Car accident. I bet you they were both drunk; it happened at 11:38 p.m.”

    “I heard that, too,” Audrey agrees. “I knew Madalyn, too, and she was kind of a party girl.”

    I sit there, resisting the urge to jab my fork deep into my own thigh and twist it around until my muscles are shredded. “I… I don’t think so.”    

    “Then just what happened, moron?” Audrey demands. “They were both vodka-gargling sluts.”

    “Audrey, that’s not a ladylike thing to say,” Mom scolds.

    “Audrey isn’t a lady,” I mumble.

    “Hey, shut up!” Audrey snaps. “God, you’re such a jerk.”

    “Kids!” Dad barks. “Stop it right now. I won’t be having this incessant bickering in my household, you got it? You two either shape up or move on out.”

    There’s a silence, Audrey pouting, and me just staring resentfully at nothing in particular. Finally, Lily asks,

    “What’s a vodka-gargling slut?”

    My father sighs, and my mom begins to giggle.

    Even I crack a grin, and reply, “You’ll find out when you’re older.”

    “Just don’t say that at school, Lilypad,” Dad advises, already rubbing his head from a teenage children induced headache.

    I take the paper up to my room to read the article, and I’m surprised to see that it’s not on the front page, or on page two, but on page four.

    I sit on my bed, pondering how much it’d suck to die horrifically at a young age just to be a footnote in my hometown’s newspaper. 

    And we can act as modest as we want and pretend we don’t like attention at all but even in the third degree introverts, you’ll find that while they don’t want to be worshiped, they certainly don’t want to be forgotten.

   

 


	4. Chapter 4

          I think about Madalyn a lot that night. I wonder about what was going through her head right before she died. I want to know who was the last person  she thought about and if she woke up to that person, too. First and foremost, whether or not that person would think of her if they were put in the same situation. I really hope they would, because I feel like Madalyn deserves someone who cares about her just as much as she cares for them.

            There’s the rap of knuckles on my door, and I instinctively call,

            “Come in; it’s unlocked.”

            Mom opens the door carefully still, doing an initial scan of the room before stepping in. “What are you doing, bud?”

            I shrug, lying, “I was just resting.”

            I feel like there’s a fifty-fifty chance as to whether or not she believes me, and I don’t like risks. Her facial expression doesn’t change, so I can’t help but think that she took my explanation with a grain of salt.

            “I was just wondering if you’re going to those girls’ funerals on Friday,” Mom admits. “I can’t get them out of my head. You and Madalyn had the same bus stop in preschool. We’d carpool.”

            “I forgot about that,” I mutter. And I had; I guess that when you grow up your mind just decides what isn’t important and kicks it to the side for new memories and mental development. But the only problem is, I’d like for it to ask my permission before throwing out memories. I guess I had bigger fish to fry, more important things to do than think about how I shared a bus stop with Madalyn that one year.

            “Are you?” Mom asks.

            “Am I what?”

            I know what she’s asking me, but I’m just trying to buy time, trying to come up with an excuse as to why I can’t make it to the funeral. I’ve been thinking about Madalyn too much as it is; the last thing I need is to go and listen to a bunch of people go on and on about what an inspiration she was, and can’t be anymore, and how she’s in a better place, assuming that she’s went to heaven and not hell.

            “Going to their funerals?” Mom repeats.

            “No, why would I?”

            I don’t mean to sound snarky or mean, but my words absolutely come off that way.

            My mom raises a brow, and reasons, “They were in your class, sweetie.”

             “I know,” I mumble. I pick at my fingernails just to avoid looking at my mother, who is surely growing worried, worried that I’m getting bad again.

            I hear her leave, but she doesn’t close the door behind her, which makes me wonder if she really trusts me after all that’s happened.

           

           

           


	5. Chapter 5

I used to never get nervous.

            That’s the only thing I can think of when I step a foot inside the school building Monday morning. Last Wednesday night was the candlelight vigil for two of our students that had died in a car accident, and school was let out Thursday and Friday for their funerals. I didn’t go to any of the mourning events; I was already thinking about one of the girls who was killed way more than I should, and I really thought it’d do more bad than good to hear everyone go on about what a good person she was, but can’t be anymore, and how she’s in a better place, assuming she went to heaven and not hell.

            Their names are, no, were, Madelyn and Samantha. Madelyn shared a bus stop with me when we were in preschool, and my mom used that as a basis as to why I should attend her burial. Little does she know, I have at least three reasons why I should’ve gone to her funeral, and one monumental one that explains why I elected against it.

            The halls aren’t the same; the laughter is gone. They’re silent except for the occasional cough or attempt at conversation, all of which are ignored.

            That’s how I’ve kind of been feeling lately. Ignored. I hope that Madelyn never felt that way; but I know that as the past has proved, hopes are not facts.  And if life were completely subjective, we could rely on our dreams, but sadly, it’s a bit more black and white, and facts dictate what we do.

            The gloomy feeling is contagious, so I’m feeling pretty down, like, more than usual down, when this kid tries to talk with me in art.

            The boy who talks to me is this greasy looking sophomore who is associated with two things and two things only at our school, one being art, and the other head lice.  The art room is his natural habitat, and he’s in there so much that I almost feel like I’m invading his home turf whenever I come for my class. So it’s natural that in his own elements, he’d be the one to ask,

“What’s got you upset?”

The nature of the question is genuine, but his bored tone ruins the initial maternal quality.

I’m shocked, to say the least. Not surprised at that fact that he’d read me so easily, but just to hear him actually speak. You don’t understand; I’ve sat next to this kid since the first day, and the punk hasn’t uttered a word. I suppose I’m just as bad, seeing as I wasn’t really jumping through hoops to make conversation either. But the point is that he didn’t seem interested in chitchat earlier, so why would he be now? “I’m not upset.”

The boy rolls his eyes, informing, “You know, when someone has to tell a lie that’s not premeditated, their eyes glance to the left and they trail their words. I pick up on that; I pick up on a lot of things.”

There’s a lump formed in my throat, one that I can’t swallow. I wonder if I can even speak, so I settle for giving a half-hearted shrug and turning back to my artwork.

The boy clears his throat loudly, snapping, “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Why are you getting so angry?” I retort. “So what, I don’t want to talk to you. What’s the big deal?”

“Because everyone in this school is upset right now, and they don’t know where to go, but that’s out of loss, see? And remorse. But you’ve been parading around like a lazy jerk all year, and it’s not out of grief, I can tell you that,” the boy elaborates.

There’s nothing I want more at that moment than to set that kid straight and punch him till he sees stars. I know that violence solves nothing and social learning theory dooms us all to be abusive and blah blah blah, but it’s not so much an impulse as it is a desire. A desire that can be fulfilled but yet…

I don’t hit him. Instead, I say calmly, “What I do is none of your business. I’d appreciate it if you leave me alone.”

“It’s my obligation not to,” the kid replies vaguely.

I wonder what he could mean by that; that it’s his “obligation” not to leave me alone. What does he think I am, some child? “I don’t need you babysitting me.”

“You know,” he begins, “everyone seems to think that. But the grand scheme of this isn’t that you’re incapable of taking care of yourself, moreover that you’re in need of companionship.”

The kid’s an elitist. Fantastic; like we don’t have enough of those around here (myself included). That’s not even what makes me most angry, it’s that he had the audacity to tell me that I need a friend. No matter how much he sugarcoated it, I could still taste the reality of his words. “Companionship? You don’t owe me any favors.”

 

“Who said I did?” he reasons, a smile playing faintly at his lips.

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s rude boys trying to be charming. Not that he’s necessarily mean, but just the blunt nature of not only his speech, but his demeanor as well, unsettles me greatly.

I don’t answer him; just shake my head and turn away, bringing my attention back to my paper.

To think that I believed that’d be the end of it. That’s the great thing about life; it’s never so simple, is it?

It’s not before long that I catch the kid looking at me, and not even little peeks from the corner of his eye, but blatant staring.

I was raised in a household where staring or pointing got you a slap on the wrist. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t polite, and it certainly wasn’t necessary is what my siblings and I were told. Actually, these standards are currently being passed onto Lily, who is the patron saint of small children who point at strangers and ask loud questions that aren’t meant to be rude but always come off that way.

From what I’ve been taught, I should smack him on the wrist, swiftly and firmly. I’ve been programmed into thinking that staring is the ultimate offense, and that there are no exceptions for any perpetrators whatsoever.

But instead, I tell him,

“My name’s Hayden.”

He doesn’t reply, just keeps his eyes fixed on me. I begin to get uncomfortable, and I’m close to asking for his name or bailing when he responds,

“I’m Kyle.”

The strange thing about him isn’t that the first thing he said to me is “What’s got you upset?” Nor is it the fact that he saw right through me without fail, or even that he smells like the boys’ locker room after a football game. I couldn’t make heads or tails of him, and that annoyed me. There was something off center, some sort of numbers that didn’t add up, and it’s literally the most aggravating thing to not be able to size everyone up, as harsh or judgmental as that may sound.

We don’t exchange a single word for the rest of the hour, and when the bell rings, he’s out of there faster than I can stand up. I think good riddance to myself, and the next day in art, I use my passive aggressive self to tell him,

“I don’t like you, but I hope that’s okay.”

I don’t get the reaction I was hoping for; he hardly bats an eye. “If it makes you feel better, I wouldn’t like me either.”

I’m not sure how to respond to that; I can’t even tell if he’s joking or not. So I force a sort of pained smile before sitting down at another table. During class, I catch him looking at me again, and when I address this with a raise of a brow, he merely crosses his eyes and uncrosses them slowly.

I shake my head, turning my back to him. What an idiot.

In the next few weeks, I’d be seeing Kyle way more than I would’ve ever expected, and possibly even wanted.


End file.
